Graham Nash's hippie ideals endure

Passionate music legend shares his story in candid new autobiography ‘Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life.’ His two Belly Up shows next month are sold-out.

Singer Graham Nash is interviewed during a break in the recording session for the audio book version of his "Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life" autobiography, in New York, Thursday, July 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
— AP

Singer Graham Nash is interviewed during a break in the recording session for the audio book version of his "Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life" autobiography, in New York, Thursday, July 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
/ AP

It is near the end of an in-depth interview and the English-born, naturalized American rock legend has reaffirmed his position as one of pop’s most charmingly loquacious singer-songwriters. His voice dances as he discusses his often absorbing autobiography, “Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life” (Crown).

Suddenly, the co-founder of The Hollies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, ﻿and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ﻿is so taken aback by a question that he sounds incredulous.

The query that reduces him to a near-sputter is: How did the hippie idealism of the 1960s, and its fabled peace-and-love ethos, go wrong?

“The hippie idealism, to me, is that love is better than hate, that peace is better than war, that we’d better take care of each other, and that — if you see somebody less fortunate than you — try and treat them the way you would want them to treat you. Those hippie ideals haven’t gone anywhere.”

After pausing to reflect, he acknowledges those ideals have lost much of their cachet in an era when shallow celebrities are lauded simply for being celebrities.

“They’ve been replaced by Justin Bieber’s monkey and Kim Kardashian’s ass,” lamented Nash, who performs sold-out concerts here Nov. 4 and 5 at the Belly Up. “But those (hippie) ideals are still important, and getting more important by the day. The moment corporations completely take over the world, we’re (finished)...”

This burst of passion is quintessential Nash.

He is as outspoken and committed to his beliefs now as when Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young performed at Woodstock in both 1969 and — minus Young — 1994. His zest for life, and for pushing himself to excel, are both unabated.

Crosby, Stills & Nash at Woodstock

"My basic philosophy is that, if I'm OK and my wife and friends are OK, the rest is a game, and how do you want to play it," Nash said, speaking from a recent Crosby, Stills & Nash tour stop in England.

"And I want to play it the best way I can. I want to be the best at everything I do. Am I going to make it? Of course not. But no one can tell me I didn't try."

Nash is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (first with Crosby, Stills & Nash, then with The Hollies, who scored their first hit single in England in 1963). He has played the fame game better, and longer, than most. And his disdain for the current state of affairs is palpable, even over the phone from Europe.

"You know, there's so much serious stuff going on in the world," Nash said. "And we have been trained by the media to be much more interested in the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass and Justin Bieber's (expletive) monkey than some of the terrible things in the world. Those things will do us in if we don't take care of them, particularly climate-change and how we're mistreating the earth."

His decades-long devotion to environmental causes, from saving the whales to championing clean energy, is amply reflected in "Wild Tales." He put the book together over a four-month period, although Nash admits that he didn't write it, technically speaking.

"I just recorded myself talking, for days," he explained. "My friend, Bob Spitz, typed it all up and sent me the manuscript. I put it in order and checked the dates. Bob said he did not want his name on the book, because all he did was type my words."

'Something magical happened'

Nash was in Los Angeles on a 1968 concert tour with The Hollies in 1968 when Mama Cass of the Mamas & The Papas introduced him to Stephen Stills and David Crosby, who had achieved rock stardom, respectively, as member of the bands Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds.

Stills and Crosby sang the ballad "You Don't Have to Cry" for Nash. He asked them to sing it again and listened intently. On the third run-through, he added his high tenor to the mix and a folk-rock super group was born.

"Something magical had happened, and we all knew it," Nash writes in his book. "When you sing with two or three people and you get it right — when the whole thing becomes greater than the parts — everything kind of lifts a couple of feet off the ground. ... It was there, complete, a minute into our relationship."

Also there were some of the seeds that would make being a member of CSN an alternately heady and tumultuous affair.

Crosby gave Nash his first joint to smoke. "Little did I know at the time that Crosby had the best dope in Hollywood," writes Nash, who also notes: "Little did I know that Crosby had a Ph.D in acting out."

It shouldn't surprise fans that some of the choicest tidbits in Nash's book are related to music.

For example, before Neil Young came on board, both Steve Winwood and Al Kooper declined invitations to join Crosby, Stills & Nash. The Beatles-owned Apple Records turned down CSN when the fledgling trio was first seeking an album contract.

After Nash moved to Los Angeles in 1968, Crosby lent him “a little dough just to tide you over,” in the form of a check for $80,000. When Nash and his then-girlfriend, Joni Mitchell, had an argument in a hotel room in Sweden early 1970, she poured a bowl of cornflakes and milk over his head.

"I was stunned to say nothing of being pissed," he writes in his book. "Then I put Joni over my knee and I spanked her. Needless to say, it was one of the more interesting moments in our relationship."

Nash makes several references to San Diego in "Wild Tales."

Among them are a 1970 horse-riding injury sustained here by Stills and a 3,000 mile sailing trip Nash embarked on with Crosby the same year. Their oceanic adventure took them and their crew from Florida to California, via the Panama Canal. Crosby, an expert sailor, steered his boat, the Mayan, without a scratch the entire way, until arriving in San Diego harbor.

"As we prepared to tie up to the dock," Nash writes, "another boat full of blind-drunk newspaper people with hookers on board rammed in to the Mayan and ripped out the bowsprit... It's a good thing our guns were stowed out of Croz's reach..."

By turns eye-popping, touching, witty and self-absorbed, Nash’s 360-page self-portrait is brutally candid and never boring. In it, he vividly recalls growing up very poor in England, during and after World War II, then finding salvation though music and photography. (Some of his celebrated photos, including shots of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, will be shown Nov. 8-10 ﻿at Art San Diego 2013 in Balboa Park.)

Nash’s salvation led to fame and fortune beyond his dreams. He and his band mates wrote classic songs, including Nash's "Our House" and "Marrakesh Express," that became an intrinsic part of the soundtrack for a generation. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll became an everyday reality for him and his musical compadres, and he makes no bones about it.

Any regrets? Only two

Regarding the creation of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s classic 1969 debut album, he writes: “We smoked a joint and snorted a line (of cocaine) before every (recording) session — a CSN ritual.”

Regarding longtime musical partner David Crosby, who in 1981 ﻿checked himself out of a Scripps Drug & Alcohol Treatment Program here after only a few hours, Nash writes: “Often I would knock on his hotel door, which he kept propped open with a security jamb, and he’d be getting (oral sex from two women), all while he was talking and doing business on the phone and rolling joints and smoking and having a drink.”

Regarding his own drug use, prior to his decision to stop using cocaine, Nash writes: “I’d done my share, taken enormous amounts. There is a Polaroid picture I have of a rock of cocaine that was bigger than the eight ball sitting next to it in the shot — and (bassist Tim Drummond) and I finished it in three days. So I’ve been there, I’ve been out of it at times, but I could walk away from it.”

Drug abuse was nearly fatal for Crosby and Stephen Stills, as Nash notes in sobering detail in his book. Asked how he now regards drugs, he responded: “I don’t condone anybody taking any drugs, at all. But they worked for me. Marijuana, without question, opened up my mind to whole other possibilities of existence. And LSD taught me about what was going on.”

But how did the ever-fit and trim Nash emerge virtually unscathed, when his band mates almost died from drugs?

“I want to get the job done,” he said, speaking in a suitably matter-of-fact voice. “And there’s a certain survival instinct driven deep in my soul. When I was born, World War II had three years to go. You didn’t know if your house would be there tomorrow, or if your friend would be alive. There’s a prevalent attitude in England: ‘Take a deep breath, have a sip of tea, and everything will be better tomorrow.’ ”

“With David and Stephen, the most important part of our relationship is the music. It doesn’t matter what (else) goes on, I want to get the job done.”

Asked if he had any regrets, Nash cited only two.

"When my mother died and when my father died," he said. "I was in Copenhagen with the Hollies when my father died and I tried to get back to England. But there were no flights at night and I had to rent a small plane to fly to Manchester, and I didn't make it. I missed my father's death by 2 hours. And I was in a (recording) studio in Los Angeles when my mother passed away.

"As for the rest, I don't regret any of it. I've had an incredible life. I'm still creating on many levels — painting, sculpting, photography and, obviously, songwriting. People might say: 'Would CSN have made better music if we were straight?' And there is no answer to that question. It was what it was. We could have made more music. But I don't know if we would have made better music if we were straight."

The clashes between the members of CSN (and CSNY) are the stuff of rock legend, as Nash's book repeatedly attests. Some were fueled by drugs, others by legitimate creative differences or swelled egos.

Following a 1970 concert in Chicago, Nash, Crosby and Young fired drummer Dallas Taylor because Young was put off by Taylor's frequently intrusive drum fills. CNY then cancelled the rest of their tour on the spot, incurring a financial loss for CSNY that Nash estimates at $7 million. He, Crosby and Young left Chicago "on the first plane out," Nash writes, leaving the musically showboating Stills behind.

"We didn't even tell Stephen, who had wandered off by himself," Nash writes. "He came back for the show — and there was no (expletive) show! We were completely pissed at him, and he wasn't in any kind of state to hear that. What can you do with someone who's blasted out of his skull? You can't start discussing details with him. Meanwhile, we weren't relating to each other on a rational level. There was too much head-butting and (one-upmanship), too many strong individuals insisting they were right."

'Palm trees and California blondes'

Creative tension has helped produce some of rock's greatest albums, including the debuts by CSN and CSNY. It has also caused some bands to implode, including (at various times) CSN and CSNY.

So, is creative tension conducive to creating great art? Nash, a man, who speaks with great certainty about much in his life, isn't sure.

"I don't know," he said. "There was a lot of tension going on, especially when we were making (CSNY's debut album) 'Deja Vu.' It was very different than the first CSN record, which was sunnier and more palm trees and California blondes. When we made 'Crosby, Stils & Nash,' I was in love with Joni, Stephen was in love with Judy (Collins) and David was in love with Christine (Hinton).

"Fifteen months later, I wasn't with Joan, Stephen wasn't with Judy and Christine had been killed (in a car accident). So we were already depressed. If you add to that the amount of cocaine we were taking, and the fact we were richer, 'Deja Vu' was a much different album.

"But, yeah, (regarding) the tension between the band, I don't have a brother; David and Stephen are the closest things I have to brothers. I see it in my children. My two sons argue, not all the time, but they disagree. Is it more advantageous (creatively) to be more confrontational? I don't know. With four strong individuals, four fine young musicians and songwriters, of course, tensions will be a part of the picture. But is it necessary for (creating) great music? I don't know. The Hollies didn't have tension and we made some good records."

That they did, including the Nash-penned "Carrie Anne," which was inspired by his attraction to Marianne Fathfull, who was then Mick Jagger's girlfriend. ("I had a great relationship with Marianne; she was an incredibly desirable woman when she was 18 in that Catholic school girl outfit she wore," Nash said. "Unfortunately, I never got to make love to Marianne.")

But The Hollies had no life-threatening drug problems to overcome. Not so, CSN. Nash's book chronicles, in wrenching detail, Crosby's long, soul-sapping descent into drug addiction.

Recalling an abortive 1979 recording session, Nash writes: "He was freebasing without compunction, not even hiding it discreetly. (Although I didn't know at the time that he was also chipping with heroin, which shocks me, even to this day.)"

Soon thereafter, Nash penned the songs "Wasted on the Way" and "Into the Darkness," but to no avail. Crosby's descent grew ever more hellish. His singing was so impaired, Nash writes, that Art Garfunkel and The Eagles' Timothy B. Schmit covertly recorded the vocal parts to two then-new CSN songs, to make up for Crosby's ragged singing. Executives at CSN's record company were none the wiser.

A 1980 intervention for Crosby failed, Nash writes. On a subsequent concert tour, keyboardist Mike Finnigan sang some of Crosby's vocal parts "off in the shadows" of the stage. "It actually got so bad," Nash writes, "we had to build a room adjacent to the stage so Croz could wander off and freebase between songs. Often, David walked offstage, threw up from the drugs, and was literally dragged back to sing."

Later, Nash writes: "Of course, I was equally to blame. I didn't do anything to intervene or defuse the situation. The CSN tour was an enabler for David and so was I. Absolutely. I enabled David because I wanted him to be able to make music. I tried to confront him, to prohibit the drugs. He'd say, 'Want me to sing tonight? Want me to be there, man — awake?' So to appease a junkie, you say nothing while he is getting stoned and happy. And I have to take a certain amount of responsibility. I wanted the music. The music was always the most important thing for me."

Crosby's drug travails became even more gruesome, a point Nash doesn't hold back from graphically describing. Only after serving time in a Texas prison, where he kicked his habit cold turkey, did Crosby finally get clean and sober.

Uncensored

When it comes to Crosby, his best friend for decades, Nash seems to have left nothing out of "Wild Tales." Were there any incidents Nash decided not to share in the book?

"Everybody wants to hear the (details) about Joni (Mitchell) and the role she played my life, since we lived together. So I wanted to know how Susan was processing that information (in the book), and she was totally fine. Of course, I didn't meet Susan until 6 years after Joni and I were finished.

"But I was mainly concerned with the way I described my life with David and his spiral into cocaine madness. It really affected me, not only on a personal level, but a musical and spiritual level. There was one story in my book, the only one, that legal department (of the publishers) wanted me to make sure was true. And that was about David selling his Mercedes to his drug dealer and the dealer dying, and David stealing the car back. I wrote David, and he said: 'Hey, that's exactly what happened — and I re-sold the car.'

"David is a man; he admits what happened. He knows he went crazy there, he knows how it affected me. He admitted it, and said: 'Don't change a word. It's all true'."

Would Nash have changed any part of the book if Crosby had asked him?

"Only if it wasn't true and I'd remembered it wrong," Nash said. "That's why I closed the book with (the line): "This is how I remember it,' because we all have our truths. The truth is that Stephen, to this day thinks the first time we (CSN) sang together was in (Mama) Cass’ kitchen, and it's just not true. We all choose to believe what we think.

"But had David asked me to change (the book) I probably would have, because it was pretty brutal. But he's here in the next room and he's read the book, and he found it to be a very interesting read. I wanted the book to be in my voice. I wanted it to be clear. And I wanted it to be like I was talking to you in my kitchen, not a big, highfalutin', brilliant thing, but me talking to you. And I did."

For his pending Belly Up performance, Nash will be accompanied by Crosby's son, James Raymond on keyboards and former Lone Justice/Bruce Springsteen guitarist Shayne Fontaine. As for the rest of this year and the year ahead, Nash's schedule is already full.

"I'm doing the final mixes for a 40-song, 3-CD CSNY box set of our 1974 tour that will be out in early March," he said.

"David and Stephen and I were honored in May to play with Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center (big band), which orchestrated 12 of our songs. We got to sing with them at Lincoln Center and that was a thrill. I obviously made sure we were recording that on multi-track and that we had 16 video cameras. As soon as I finish the CSN box set, I'll start working on that. Then there's some photography shows planned, and a painting show for me. And we're joining Neil (Young) at (this weekend's) Bridge School Benefit (concert), so maybe Neil will want to do something (next year), too...

"I'm a person who focuses on getting the job done. If we're going to make a new album, let's make it the best we can. Why not? We only have so much time in our lives."